


Mojave, Mo' Problems

by Rednaelo



Category: Borderlands (Video Games)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Bonding, Canon-Typical Violence, Creampie, Developing Relationship, Drinking, F/M, Face-Sitting, Fallout Video Game Fusion, Felching, Femdom, Flirting, Recreational Drug Use, just kidding there is no plot, sequel in the works, the plot exits for porn, the plot is that i wanted them to fuck so there you go
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-08
Updated: 2017-12-08
Packaged: 2019-02-11 10:47:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,095
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12933633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rednaelo/pseuds/Rednaelo
Summary: Nisha has been drifting in the Mojave for most of her natural life, selling her sharpshooting talents to whoever has enough caps to pay.  On a break from her latest stint of mercenary gigs, she makes her way to a nearby Deathclaw nest in the hopes of scavenging some valuable tech.  While there, she rescues Rhys – a wayward courier from the Mojave Express – who got himself in a tight spot after bullheadedly pursuing a quest of vengeance.Rhys’ revenge will have to wait, though, now that he owes Nisha his life.  She’s got a few ideas about how he can repay her.  And, of course, Rhys has a few ideas about how this gun-slinging, wasteland-crazed merc can get him to his target a little faster.And maybe they both have a few other ideas and some not-so-pure intentions.  Hard to come by a such a lovely face in the post-apocalypse….





	Mojave, Mo' Problems

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you very much to my amazing contributing artists, [hyperi0ns](https://hyperi0ns.tumblr.com/) and [antisorum](http://antisorum.tumblr.com/)! And another thank you to [Michelle](https://nothingbutchaff.tumblr.com/) for beta reading my nonsense. 
> 
> -Bec

 A storm scorches through the Mojave in early August and the floods displace the Deathclaw nests south of Nisha’s domicile.  Which puts more than one raging Mother over the invisible border that Nisha has set to outline her territory.  It’s a real shame, she thinks, grinning manically down the sights of her revolver as she aims for the pale-yellow eyes of a berserking matriarch.  Those nests kept a lot of idiots away.  Once word travels along the 15 that the quarry is barren, people are gonna come poking their noses around, prospecting for salvage or looking for prospectors to rob and kill.

Noisy.  At least the Deathclaws kept to themselves long as Nisha didn’t bother them.

Home is a ramshackle farmstead north of Trail 159 that used to be a squatting ground for Powder Gangers until Nisha decided it was a good place to call her own.   She has more than most people of the Mojave can claim, including a good chunk of farmland that could probably be persuaded to grow crops if Nisha had the want or need of it.  Hunting is just easier.  The sort of sweat that feels good to work up because it ends with blood on her hands and meat between her teeth.  And there’s no shortage of fire geckos. 

It’s been two years since Nisha moved in.  She managed to fix up the place a bit more to her liking, even though it’s got only three rooms and no plumbing.  Nisha also took ownership of the boarded-up house down the road and turned it into a smokehouse for curing the meats that she hunts.  Makes ‘em last longer; gives them more value for trading.

When she gets bored of hunting, she’ll wander and look for work.  Things to pass the time.  She’ll run escort for the Crimson Caravan or poke around Freeside, see if anything needs doing.  The better, higher paying jobs are up north, after all.  Money goes to New Vegas.  The trick is just to not be picky about where the job comes from.  Bounty hunting for the NCR can be quite lucrative.  Smuggling weapons to the Great Khans is also quite lucrative.  She’s not bothered to go looking for work from the Legion just yet.  Mostly because the Caesar’s Legion is a bunch of sequestered man-children who fight with spears and machetes. Plus their money ain’t worth shit.

It’s a bit of back-and-forth, hunting and repairing and scavenging the nearby territory, and then spending some days or weeks wandering the wasteland to put caps back in her pocket.  Last job out was months ago for the Crimson Caravan.  Before Nisha came home, she poked around an old prewar factory to scrounge up parts and scrap she would need to repair her guns and while she was there, she found an old holotape that contained the schematics for a compact water filtration system.  Plans that, in Nisha’s hands, are pretty damn useless.  She can dismantle, clean, reassemble and fix up any gun handed to her but that’s about where the expertise stops.

She could sell the plans.  But a smarter idea would be to find someone to build her the damn filter first and _then_ sell the plans.  Someone would pay good for this. 

The holotape came with a list of necessary parts, as well.  Bunch of technical stuff that Nisha only vaguely recognizes when she scans it.  But…. 

What with the quarry probably more or less cleared out of Deathclaws now – Nisha’s been seeing too many of them coming down from the hills, there can’t be many left – there’s bound to be unused machinery just sitting around, waiting to be salvaged.  There’s that mining camp, Sloan, right near the quarry, sure.  But if they were smart, they ran.  And if not, they’re dead.  Nisha’s not anticipating anyone having a problem with her coming by to pick up what she can use.

As she sees it, the only smart thing to do is to leave promptly and find what she needs before the rumors of the empty quarry spread and the rest of the Mojave comes looking.

Nisha packs up her guns and her water and swings by the smokehouse to wrap up some brahmin jerky to take with her and makes a daytrip of it, her brim low as the sun distorts the horizon line.

Summer is brutal in the Mojave in a way that Nisha’s positive it never was before the bombs.  Even a few hours walk through down Long Road 15 is enough to make most people want to shred themselves from their skin when the sun boils like it does now.  Nisha covers her whole body: long pants, heavy boots, and a duster coat that she picked up from a dead NCR ranger. Dyed black and patchwork over the bullet holes, it’s become her favorite for when she travels.  That and its accompanying recon mask.  Quite useful for nighttime hunting trips.

Hot, though.  Heavy.  Nisha keeps purified water in her flask and her flask in her hand as she hikes southward.

There are juvenile Deathclaws meandering the slopes of the hills and Nisha doesn’t bother waiting for them to see her.  She sticks to the road and picks off a pack of three – click-click-BLAM! – with shot after shot of her bolt-action rifle.  The beasts charge her, claws out, arms spread, like they’re inviting her to die in their arms and Nisha’s heart pumps hard and her smile gets wide as she lines up her scope for another kill.

Their young hides soak up the bullets like the dried-and-cracked mud out in Nisha’s empty corn fields soaks up raindrops.  But all three go down before they’re even in pistol range.  The last youngling falls face-first into the dust and slides down a little way; its stubbed horns don’t even reach the lip of asphalt that marks the highway’s shoulder.  Not much of a challenge, Nisha thinks, standing up from her crouch and going for her knife, but still plenty of thrill. 

Nisha jams her knife between the joints of their wrists and cracks through the cartilage, sawing off their hands.  She swaddles up each hand in canvas before tucking them into her pack.  The bones will make for good tools.  The leather will work well to reinforce the hem of her duster – something she’s been meaning to do for months now but the task keeps slipping by.

Every Deathclaw Nisha encounters dies because – she figures – once you start a massacre, what reason is there to stop it?  She collects hands as she goes and her pack is heavier now, damp and stinking of blood by the time her boots hit the dirt in Sloan.  Or the remaining carnage of it, anyway.

“Huh,” is all Nisha has to say at the sight of the ransacked old mining camp.  She’d been by here once or twice to trade with the NCR sadsacks who were stuck digging up limestone for whatever government reason.  But with the mess hall door hanging lopsided on a single hinge and half a corpse dragged back behind a heap of garbage, there doesn’t seem to be any business left to do.  Just another task on her list of things to take care of: Nisha’s got her whole next week mapped out for her now.

Scout out the quarry. Pick off any straggling Deathclaws. Scrounge for valuables, maybe make a trip home if there’s too many. Come back and loot the rest of the little outpost.  If there’s furniture she can use, that might take a while.  Might have to hire a brahmin to haul it for her.  Whether to hoard or use or sell whatever she scrounges will rely entirely on what she can find.  And the worst would be that Nisha will find nothing, go home, and have to spend the rest of the week tanning Deathclaw hide and washing blood out of her pack.  She’s had more tedious weeks, honestly.

Nisha ducks into the barracks to get some shade.

The bunks are all empty, no blood splatters or mangled corpses to speak of.  If there were any survivors, they probably scurried as soon as the Deathclaws moved on.  Nisha picks open a locker and stashes her pack in there but keeps her revolver and her knife to herself.  She finds the bunk that looks the least like it’ll make her regret wanting a nap and takes off her coat and hat before laying down.  The quarry and its treasures will still be there in the evening when her duster will be less likely to soak up all the water she’s sweating. 

Plus, there’s something nice about bedding down in a place that’s been scraped out and emptied by the Mojave’s bitchlike whimsies.  It’s like the desert is her mother and Nisha’s just curling up in the nest that’s been built for her. 

 

* * *

 

A bath would be nice, Nisha thinks as she pulls her coat back on.  A place where she can shower with pure, hot water and scrape off the dust from her skin, dig it out from under her fingernails.  And then an hour-long soak in a tub without having to worry about raiders coming by to investigate her property.  It’s been a good while since Nisha’s been able to do anything except sit naked on her kitchen counter and give herself a scrub with nothing but bottled water and a ratty scrap of linen.

Nisha secures the recon mask over her face and activates the night vision, which makes the low amber glow of the barrack lamps awash in a galvanized green.  Her hat goes down over her head and she pulls on her now mostly-emptied pack before putting thoughts of bathing out of her mind and heading outside.

Nighttime is easier.  It gets cold but the duster coat keeps Nisha quite warm.  The smell of blood and rotting dead isn’t so terrible now that the air isn’t saturated with heat.  The night is clear as the day was and a million stars are spread across the black though Nisha doesn’t spend more than a second looking up. Her breath fogs up against the back of the mask and tastes humid-stale when she inhales again.  Sniper rifle heavy against her shoulder, Nisha steps out onto the jigsaw-cut blacktop of the interstate. 

Quarry Junction is a close walk.  The handless carcasses of the few Deathclaws that had been straggling the mouth of the quarry itself are still rotting in the sand.  Gusts funnel through the narrows and steadily cover their bodies – and a single Powder Ganger who had long ago become prey.  They’ll all be buried bones before long. 

The quarry is a swirl of dust devils and creaking mining equipment shrouded in eddies of sand.  Nisha quietly makes her way up slope on the northern ridge of the quarry, keeping low and scanning the distance for the lumbering steps of these familiar demons.  She finds a perch behind a sizeable boulder and crouches low, pulling the scope of her gun up to the lens of her mask.

In the distance, she sees one.  A nasty-looking sonuvabitch with curved horns jutting straight out like prongs of a pitchfork and claws as long as Nisha’s forearm.  Alpha, probably.  Bad news.  Likelihood is that the Mother came crazed down the mountain to shred whatever got in her way after her nest was destroyed but if the Alpha is still lurking in the quarry, then there’s most likely to be another Mother, not far.  A new mate, another clutch. Could mean fortune for Nisha as long as she can keep herself alive. 

How many bullets is this gonna take?  Standard full-grown Deathclaw can weather about four rounds before hitting dirt, three if Nisha can get a decent headshot in.  Alphas are made of stiffer stuff: a skin that’s as tough as carapace and bones that won’t crack so easy.  Nisha licks her lips behind her mask and thinks of what she’s gonna do if that thing comes at her.  He’s a ways away.  But Deathclaws _run_. 

A click of her tongue and Nisha lowers her gun, shifting around until she gets her feet under herself comfortably, stably.  And if she needs to hightail it, she can spring up and dash in a hot second.  She puts a box of .308 rounds next to her and loads as many as she can into the magazine before lining up her shot.

Alpha’s moved.  Nisha’s heart flutters a little because he’s got his arms out and for a moment, she thinks he’s coming for her.  But the Alpha isn’t facing Nisha.  He’s running the other way. The red flash and bolt of a laser pistol is illuminating the concave of the southeastern wall.  The pistol fires rapidly, panicked, and Nisha can guess in half a second that whoever’s firing it is about to die.  Alphas are too damn fast, even for the itchiest trigger finger.  That pistol isn’t going to save a life.

Nisha is.  And then she’s going to ask for payment for services rendered from whatever dumbass went and put themselves between a Deathclaw and a wall.

The distraction is helpful for Nisha placing her shot and she gets two rounds in at the base of the skull before the Alpha falls flat on its face.  There’s a startled scream that rings through the quarry and Nisha rolls her eyes.  Idiot.  If there’s another Mother, it’s gonna come running.  Nisha listens while she peers through her scope to see who’s gonna be donating their caps to her tonight.

Some dusty looking stringbean who’s all cramped up under a tiny outcropping of mined rock.  Nisha snorts.  What’s he _wearing_? Looks like some pinstriped vest and a pair of friggin’ leather bit loafers.

Alright, so some New Vegas dipshit, clearly.  But this is a riddle that Nisha’s gotta solve now that she sees him.  Particularly when she sees his frantic features awash in the pale cast of a Pip-Boy on his arm.  That kid’s got a story.

Nisha picks up her belongings and makes her way down the ridge, between the gusts still swirling around in the bowel of the quarry.  She listens but there’s no sound of a Mother.  Only a fool would think that meant they were safe; Nisha keeps her awareness spread like the billow of her coat rippling in the dust.

She has to step over the Alpha in order to get where the kid is hiding.  It would be very easy to sneak up on him.  The dust cover is ridiculous (and loud) and Nisha has spent long years stalking and hunting her food.   She knows how to move as swiftly and silently as any other predator borne of the Mojave.  But she lets her boots scuff the gravel and clicks the safety of her gun on and off as she approaches.  She hears a gasp and a scramble behind the veil of swirling dust before her.

“Wh-who’s there?” the kid whimpers.  The laser pistol powers up, its red sight glowing like a pinprick through the dark.  In answer, Nisha reloads her magazine, the click and snap of its well-oiled parts both greeting and threat.  She raises her rifle to point through the swirl of dust and steps closer. 

“Put your gun down,” Nisha tells him.  Her voice is hollow and distorted through the mask, hissing out on the harsh consonants.  “I just saved your ass.”

“You put _your_ gun down!” he says, voice cracking.  Nisha snerks.  “Who the hell points a gun at a person they just saved?”

“And who the hell points a gun at the person who saved their life?  You’re welcome, by the way,” Nisha says.  She emerges from the brunt of the dust to see clearly into the little hidey hole the kid’s occupying. His left eye is glowing, which is fucking nuts, but Nisha’s seen weirder.  “Think you owe me a life debt now.”

“Pfft, what?  No!  No, I was shooting it, I would’ve been fine.”

“A fine mist of blood against the rock, sure,” Nisha says.

“Ha, ha, ha.”  He’s frowning up at her, arm shaking a little as he continues to point the gun at her mask.  She returns the courtesy because Nisha’s not an idiot.  You don’t lower your gun when someone is aiming at you.  “So, uh,” the kid starts again after the lingering silence proves Nisha’s resolve and his apparent lack of it, “since I owe you that life debt – so you say – you don’t really want to shoot me, right?”  He smiles.  It’s cute and dumb and he gets dust in his mouth that he splutters out.

“You want to negotiate? Put your gun down,” Nisha says again, smiling when she does, like she’s daring him.  The kid finally caves.  He swallows a breath and holds his hands up, surrendering.  Well, looks like this one folds long as the right pressure is applied.  That’s easy to work with.  Nisha turns her head just a bit, listening behind her.  Nothing but the breath of the wind and dust as it squalls through the quarry.  No sounds of Deathclaws, still….

“Look, see, I did it,” the kid says, dramatically telegraphing as he stows the laser pistol in a holster on his belt. From what Nisha can see, both the belt and holster both are made of gecko leather; the scale pattern is rather unmistakable.  What a tool.  “Now will you _please_ lower the gun?  Life debt, yeah sure, fine, let’s talk.  But not here, okay? And not with a sniper barrel in my mouth.  Can’t say the atmosphere really gets my diplomatic juices flowing.”

“Who said anything about diplomacy?” Nisha says with a snort.  Even in the low visibility with the glare of her nightvision, she can see him look up at her with wide fearful eyes.  Makes Nisha want to swoop down and swallow him.  She just chuckles.  The sound is sinister enough to make the kid tremble a bit.  “C’mon, kiddo, up.  Let’s walk.”  Nisha taps the barrel of her rifle against the kid’s Pip-Boy – clink-clink – and he startles himself to his feet, snatching up a satchel that looks like it’s seen better days.  It’s hard to make out in the dark but Nisha catches a glimpse of the embroidery across the flap.

‘Mojave Express,’ it reads. 

 

* * *

  

The stranger takes Rhys back to Sloan, walking behind him in his blind spot the whole time.  Which is more than a little unnerving, if not completely annoying, but Rhys spends the trip considering possibilities. 

“Well, you’re definitely not NCR,” he says to the stranger, almost conversationally as they finally leave the dust swirls of the quarry. 

“You think so?” they laugh.

“Not in that color,” Rhys answers, smirking over his shoulder a little.  “No, I think you’re an opportunist.  Which is a wise thing to be in this hellhole.”

“Aw.  Flattery will get you everywhere,” the stranger says.  The tease is definitely more like a threat, hissed out on a compressed breath from their mask.  Rhys swallows back a shiver and reminds himself to beat his head against the nearest rock for thrilling at the words and all the knives held beneath them.

“Well, you were in a limestone quarry full of giant monster lizards, wearing a ranger coat and a recon mask with a well-maintained sniper rifle in your hands.  You knew what you were going up against and you were very prepared which can only mean you had a reason for being there.  And the only reason someone would put themselves in that sort of nightmare is if there was something to profit from.  So, yeah.  Opportunist.”

“I see,” the stranger says.  “By that logic, I can only guess that you’re suicidal since you were backed against a wall with nothing but a dinky little laser pistol, wearing absolutely no armor.  That or just a complete moron.  Maybe both.”

Rhys rolls his eyes and sneers.

“There didn’t used to be Deathclaws there,” he mutters.  Which is _true_.  The infestation must’ve happened at some point during his recovery.  Rhys was out for weeks, or so he was told by the nice old doctor who saved him.  The ransacked mining camp should’ve tipped him off but Rhys just figured it had been raiders, since it’s almost always raiders.

Certainly puts some things into perspective, though.  Changes some priorities….

They follow along the fence.  Sloan is still carnage, as it was when Rhys passed it.  He goes to the rather defunct cafeteria and the stranger follows him.  Rhys picks up an overturned chair and sets it by one of the tables before taking a seat.  It smells in here but at least the door is knocked off the hinges so Rhys knows he can at least _try_ to escape if he needs to.  The stranger goes over to the bar and leans against it, rifle lowered but definitely not out of their hands. 

“So what’s the contract, then?” Rhys asks them.  He sets his messenger bag down on the table and digs out a couple of bottles of Sunset Sarsaparilla.  He pops them open, one after the other by prying the caps off with the edge of the table.  The stranger just stands there and stares – unreadable – as Rhys nudges one of the bottles towards the edge of the table closest to them before taking a swig from his own.  “Who’s paying you to hunt in a hole full of Deathclaws?”

If there’s anything that Rhys has learned – from what he still remembers; getting shot in the head can loosen your grip on a few things – it’s that the best way to keep yourself alive is to keep the people around you happy.  And you keep them happy by knowing what they want.  Luckily for Rhys, he’s always been quite good at reading people.  Even if they wear masks. 

Peace offerings usually help, too.  Wastelanders don’t just _give_ things away.  Something as simple as offering a soda to someone who not fifteen minutes ago was pointing a gun at your face isn’t so much a gesture of forgiveness as it is an indicator of bargaining.  There’s always strings attached.

“No one,” the stranger answers and doesn’t elaborate and doesn’t move. 

Rhys nods, looking down into his bottle contemplatively, as if he’s thinking about what he wants to say next.

“But whatever’s out there must be valuable to you,” he goes on to say.  “Worth the risk and the work.”

“What if I just like to hunt Deathclaws for fun?” the stranger posits and Rhys looks up because he hears them smiling.  He quirks his own smile at the corner of his mouth, laughing.

“I think I’d believe it,” he says.  “With a gun like that, yeah.  Mercenary or sport-hunter.”  Rhys’ heart is throbbing a little bit, his pulse thudding sluggish and hard through his veins because he could be dealing with a complete psycho here.  They haven’t hurt him, yet.  Rhys doesn’t think they _want_ to.  But they definitely followed Rhys and are having the conversation still because they want something.

Rhys wants something, too.

Fuck, it’d be so much easier without the mask.  Rhys grits his teeth and tells himself just to tackle the challenge bit by bit.  He can be patient.

“Anyway, about that life debt,” he says, because it’s the best place for him to start at this point.  “I’ll be real honest with you, I don’t have much.”  He sighs like it’s truly tragic, and it truly is.  Big ol’ bummer.  “I’ve got a handful of caps, some chems and a bunch of useless junk on me and that’s it.  So I can’t pay you in anything of value.”

“I hear Pip-Boys fetch a pretty decent price if you can find the right buyer,” the stranger says, not missing a beat.  Rhys scowls at them and they have the gall to give him a nasty-sounding chuckle that has Rhys’ tongue feeling heavy and dry in his mouth.  “Where’d you come by that little bit of tech?”

“It was a gift,” Rhys says, furrowing his brow.  Which is the truth but not the whole truth and he doesn’t feel inclined to give any more.  “And it’s not on the table.  Look, my material wealth is close to nothing.  What I’m _trying_ to say is that I can be of more value to you with what I can do for you rather than what I can give.”

There’s a dry lingering silence that sounds like the soft fizzing of the soda in Rhys’ hand and the stranger tilts their head very slowly to one side as if examining Rhys from a different angle is going to help elucidate whatever they’re not understanding. 

Then they say,

“You wanna whore yourself to me,” and Rhys splutters, blushing hotly to his ears and down his neck.

“I do _not_ ,” he insists.  “That’s _not_ what I meant. I am incredibly talented and I can do everything from constructing security robots to performing minor surgical procedures to convincing people that the best decision they ever made in their life was to put their caps in my hands.”

“Uh-huh,” the stranger says.  The gun is laid on the counter so they can fold their arms over their chest while they consider Rhys.  “You’re good at building stuff?”

“Machinery, yes,” Rhys qualifies.  “And computers.”

“And this?”  The stranger digs into their pocket and pulls out a holotape.  They approach the table and take a seat, putting the tape down for Rhys to pick up.  While he loads it into his Pip-Boy, the stranger tugs the offered bottle of Sunset Sarsaparilla towards themselves and pulls their helmet and recon mask off.

Rhys gapes.  She smirks back at him before taking a sip from the bottle. 

“Well, can you do it?” she asks.  Rhys holds up his arm and glances down at the Pip-Boy, hoping its pale amber glow will wash out the flush of his cheeks.  God, she’s gorgeous….

The holotape she gave him looks to be a schematic for a water filter. It’s incredibly detailed but the construction is simplistic.  Rhys has a handful of the parts in his bag already.  More could be found right here in Sloan if he pokes around a bit.

“Yeah, this is child’s play,” Rhys tells her, ejecting the tape and handing it back.  “If I had all the parts, I could build this in half a day.”

“Do it and I’ll call your debt squared,” the woman says.  And Rhys really isn’t going to say no to that.  It gives him an excuse.  A reason to stick around this stranger a little longer.  She’s incredibly powerful.  Just the sort of person Rhys needs to help him cut his way up the interstate and get him to New Vegas as quickly as possible. 

Which is why Rhys needs to know as much as he can about her so he can convince her to come along with him.  He’s got one laser pistol that he barely knows how to use and the beams are little more than scratches against some of the tougher customers of the wasteland. 

“It’s a deal,” Rhys tells her, nodding.  She knocks her bottle against his in a toast and swallows about half of it before slamming it down on the table again.  Rhys drinks and sets his bottle aside to hold his hand out to her.  “I’m Rhys,” he finally introduces himself and keeps his grin smooth and suave because it’s charmed everyone before her and he’s not about to break his streak.

She snatches his forearm instead of shaking his hand and leans in close, smirking back.

“Nice to meet you, Rhys,” she murmurs low.  Her breath is warm and smells like root beer.  “The name’s Nisha Kadam.” She laughs at him and lets him go, standing again to leave him there at the table and collect her gun.  “Now stay put like a good boy while I finish what I came for.  I’ll be back for you in an hour.  And if you’re not here….”  Nisha looks over her shoulder and flashes a ravenous smile at him, her golden eyes glowing like gamma rays.  “Well, I do love a good hunt.”

She leaves and Rhys finds himself staring stupidly at her unfinished bottle of sarsaparilla, wondering, again, if his carefully considered plan is actually just him looking at the shittiest of situations with rose-tinted glasses and congratulating himself on his own imagined genius.

Too late now, he’s in this for the long haul.  He steals the rest of her soda out of spite and _not_ because he’s got a stupid crush on the woman who threatened to kill him.   His lips don’t linger at the mouth of the bottle while he thinks of her laughing behind her mask. 

Isn’t one violence-induced infatuation enough?  Rhys chugs the remains in a frustrated impulse, gets a mouthful lodged weirdly in his throat and winces and burps with tears in his eyes.

Suicidal or a moron, she called him.  Probably both, Rhys thinks to himself and unpacks his satchel onto the table so he can keep himself occupied.  If he doesn’t end up dead-for-real by the end of this little venture, Rhys might just have to find a shrink to sit down with.

A lot of things are missing.  Too many.  Rhys remembers himself and remembers his last job as a courier for the Mojave Express:  a platinum poker chip to be delivered to the Lucky 38 Casino in the heart of the New Vegas Strip.  Everything before that is smeared over and full of sand.  Sometimes, talking with others, Rhys will find himself relating memories before double-taking, wondering if what he just said was true or not. 

Oh, yes, he’s been to New Reno, but it’s been quite a while.  Or has it?  Or has he ever? It’s like his mind knows but Rhys can’t actually place details.  He doesn’t remember his parents or where he was born.  But he remembers how to hack into prewar terminals and how to use a stimpak so it heals as quickly and effectively as possible.  Rhys is existing like skipping stones over the depths of whoever he is or was or was going to be.  Like this body is borrowed and he’s just a mind that woke up in it one day.

And, well, he’s decided to find the handsome asshole who put a bullet in his head and maybe see if he can return the favor.  Get his damn platinum chip back, since that’s why Rhys got the bullet in the first place.  There might be no point to finishing that delivery now.  But damn if vengeance and just getting a job done isn’t the only thing that Rhys has going for him right now.  What are his other options?  Plunk on back to Goodsprings and dawdle around for the rest of his days?

Rhys might not remember clearly but he doubts that whoever he was would be content to just live out the rest of his life doing fuck-all.  Mostly because who he is right now finds the thought nothing short of agonizingly tedious.  New Vegas would be a better place to land, a more fitting goal for Rhys to reach for.  He could find himself a nice, cushy job at one of the casinos, maybe.  Live a more lavish lifestyle befitting someone of his tastes, enjoying the rare fineries of luxury in the midst of this bloodlusting desert. 

Yep, that sounds like a better plan than anything.  Get to New Vegas, get revenge, get the chip, get the job done, get a better (less lethal) job, get the happy ending.  It’s lacking a lot of detailed planning but Rhys is taking things one step at a time.  Starting with just getting himself to Freeside – the slums outside of New Vegas proper – in one fucking piece. 

Which is where Nisha comes in, really, in more ways than one.  She’s already rescued him from almost certain death.  Now Rhys just has to persuade her to accompany him to New Vegas so she can keep him safe a little longer.  It’s rather apparent that Rhys doesn’t have what he needs to make it on his own, much as it bruises his pride to admit.  Upside is that Nisha is very clearly talented in ways he is not and she is also incredibly gorgeous and most likely a little crazy and that just makes a fun little cocktail of neurotransmitters go rattling around Rhys’ reptile brain.

He’d love to know her story.  Or any story she has really; Mojave folk tend to collect some of the more interesting tales.  He’ll have plenty of time to ask her while he builds her this water filter thing she wants.  Plenty of time to find out what she wants and convince her he can give it to her if she’ll just humor him a while longer. 

Shouldn’t be too hard.

Rhys fiddles with a couple sensor modules he scavenged from an abandoned storage shack a couple days ago.  These are necessary pieces to Nisha’s filter and all they need is a little tune up to be ready for usage.  It’s kind of nice to have this little detour to his plans, Rhys thinks as he tweaks a few pins.  He sinks into the work and into his thoughts, alternating between the delicate mechanics of the salvage in his hands and wondering if Nisha might respond positively to the promise of getting to see the Strip.  Despite it being the metropolitan hub of the Mojave, not many people get to see the Strip, credit checks being pretty steep for your average wastelander and passports almost impossible to come by.

Granted, Rhys doesn’t actually have a clue how he’s going to get into the Strip himself but he will. He knows he will. 

 

* * *

 

“You dumb enough to follow me home?” Nisha asks him not too long after she returns from the quarry with a pack full of machine parts and scrap metal.  She’s smiling at him again, daring him.  Rhys clicks his tongue at her.

“I said I’d build you the damn thing,” he tells her as he gets to his feet.  “Not like there’s a point in doing it here.  Lead on.  You find everything?”

“Almost,” Nisha says.  She shoulders her gun and steps from the mess hall, Rhys trailing after her.  It’s still fucking dark and Rhys is exhausted from the day he just put behind him and really would like to just sleep.  So....

“How long of a trip are we making?” he asks Nisha as they walk together along the interstate, leaving the wistful, yellow glow of Sloan behind them. 

“It’s an hour walk from here,” she says.  “You gonna keep up or am I gonna end up having to dig you a grave on the side of the road?”

“I’ll be fine.” Rhys pouts and she laughs at him.  “You listen to Radio New Vegas?”

“I’ll catch it sometimes if people have their radios going when I drop by,” Nisha says.  That pack she’s carrying is huge.  It’s gotta be heavy.  But Nisha walks as swift and gracefully as she had without it.  “Well, turn it on, then,” Nisha goes on to say.  “There’s a radio in that thing, right?”

Rhys flicks the dials on his Pip-Boy until the gentle static evens out into the crooning voice of Sinatra and his band singing about the blue moon.  Helps fill the silence which might’ve turned up a little awkward if they couldn’t find things to talk about. 

But they do.  Rhys is grateful for it.

“Alright, so, what’s a pretty little fop like you doing this far south of Vegas?” Nisha asks.  Well, he wants to scowl at her for insulting him but she also called him pretty so Rhys just lets his face flush hot in the darkness and tries to explain himself. 

“I was completing a delivery,” Rhys tells her.  “Running a package from Primm back to the Strip.  Had an unexpected detour.”

Nisha honest to god snorts and Rhys smiles at the sound.

“You often make detours to death’s door?”

“It’s a recent hobby,” Rhys says with bitterness laced in his mirth.  Give him one more close encounter and he’ll probably learn his lesson a little more permanently.  “What about you? What brought you to the quarry?”

“Deathclaws came running into my territory,” Nisha says.  It’s quiet as they walk.  Just their footsteps and the low accompaniment of the radio from the Pip-Boy on Rhys’ arm.  “After that storm hit and I had rabid Mothers come charging through the gaps in the hills, I figured I’d go poke around.  See what I could find.”

“Scavenging, then,” Rhys says with a nod.  Well, they’re heading north.  And Nisha said it’d be about an hour away.  Rhys pulls up his Pip-Boy’s map to look.  Useful thing, this clunky arm computer…. “You live in the Vault?”

“Nah,” Nisha says.  “You ever been in a Vault, kid?”  Rhys shakes his head when Nisha looks over at him.  “They’re shitty.  Closed up and the air smells like ass.  Nah, the only thing in that Vault now is a bunch of Gangers.  Moved in after I chased a bunch of their buddies off my land and they can rot in that hole.”

“Then…a house of your own?”

“Prewar farmhouse,” Nisha tells him.  “And a good bit of land around it.  It’s crap but it’s close to whatever I need.”

“Do you live with your family?” Rhys asks.  Nisha hasn’t really given Rhys the impression that she even has something like a family, but….  Well, smart people won’t let on if they have weaknesses out here.  You never who might be a rat bastard and use it against you.  Rhys himself suspects that the only reason Nisha is comfortable with leading him to her home is because she understands that she could overpower him at any given moment with great ease.

“Parents have been dead for years,” Nisha says and doesn’t sound the least bit sorry.  “Buried somewhere east; I’ve forgotten.”

No mention of any lovers or children of her own.  So it must just be Nisha in that house. 

“You seem like the sort to do mercenary work,” Rhys observes aloud.

“If it pays well,” Nisha agrees.  “There’s always someone who needs something done and is willing to shell out the caps for it.”

“And you do your job well,” Rhys goes on to say.  Because of course she does, look at her.  She’s healthy and strong and power-walking with a knapsack full of metal on her back.  Her smile is fierce in the moonlight.  “And get paid well for it, I bet.  Why not live in the city?  It’s a lot safer and everything you could possibly need is nearby.”

Rhys can’t remember too much concretely from before his run in with the man who shot him for the platinum chip.  But he can still feel the urge for the warm neon glow of the Strip, the safety of its walls.  They have clean water there that runs from every tap.  Every bed is behind a locked door and dressed with laundered sheets and blankets.  Mattresses as soft as clouds….  Rhys thinks on it now and feels like he’s lovesick.

“Sounds boring,” Nisha says.  Yep, alright, the lady’s batshit bonkers.  Rhys sighs but Nisha talks over it.  “Vegas is a good place to pick up good work because that’s where all the money goes, yeah.  But the people who live there are all soft.  They’re not living, they’re lavishing.  Nowhere to get blood on your hands up in those ivory towers.”

Rhys looks down at his dust-coated vest and the scuffs on shoes, the rips at the cuffs of his trousers….  He looks to be exactly what he is: one of those soft high rollers who got themselves buried in a shallow grave out here in the wasteland.  The one discrepancy being that Rhys has never actually been a high roller.  Just an opportunistic buyer who knows where to acquire frivolities like the ones he’s wearing.  Just a nice burial outfit that he’s breaking in, apparently.

And it’s true that Nisha might just be your quintessential Mojave wildwoman but she thrives out here, with her black ranger coat and her sniper rifle that looks like it was teleported into her hands from an era before the bombs dropped with how pristine it looks.  The thought of just trying to scrape by out here in the wasteland forever still sits like a stone in Rhys’ gut. 

“But for a twiggy little baby like you, I’m sure it’s a paradise,” Nisha cuts through Rhys’ navel-gazing and he looks up at her grinning at him.  “You wanna go to New Vegas?”

“I’d like to,” Rhys says.  For a lot of different reasons.  Vengeance first because how could Rhys sleep in his cloud-soft bed if he knew his would-be murderer is still out there, strolling along the Strip?

“Well, then I know where to come looking for you if this filter you build me ever needs repairs.”

 

* * *

 

Rhys is a funny kid, Nisha decides by the time they hit the exit fork that’ll take them to her home.  And not really funny like ha-ha (though he is that sometimes, mostly because he’s an idiot) but funny as in ridiculous.  Just so completely out of place here.  From his cybernetically augmented eye to his pretentious little shoes.  Nisha doesn’t much care about the shoes but when she asks about the eye – it’s an unreal blue compared to the demure brown one – Rhys gives a displeased snort.

“It used to be in both of my eyes.”

He says it like someone owes him an actual eyeball and like his skinny little fingers are gonna go popping it out of that someone’s skull first chance he gets.  It has Nisha looking over her shoulder at him as Rhys frowns down at his Pip-Boy, turning its dials and making the cast of light shift ever so slightly with every click. 

“What’s it do?” Nisha asks.

“Just helps me see better so I won’t need glasses,” Rhys tells her.  “My eyesight’s not that great.  I’m back to half of that now that the one is broken.  I’ll have to get to the clinic up in New Vegas if I want to get it repaired.”  He groans.  “That’s going to take more caps than I have.  Dammit…”

“Hey, you could always take up the delivery boy job again, huh?” Nisha teases him.  He’s easy to tease, always pouting at her and blushing in the dark.  It really completes that whole entitled brat thing he’s got going for him. 

“Fat chance,” Rhys says with a scoff.  “You wouldn’t happen to know anyone in the area who could give me a job, would you?”

“Build me the filter first,” Nisha tells him.  “You worry about that before you worry about your caps.  You do a good job, I’ll find you some work.  Said you had some medical experience?  There’s a few places I know that could use your hands.”

“Better that than scavenging,” Rhys grumbles to himself.  “I could sell things I find for a pretty decent price but finding the good stuff takes too much time.  It’s also more likely to get me killed.”

Nisha thinks to tell him that he’d probably not have to worry so much about the dangers of the Mojave if he used his brain and wore some armor over that little wannabe high roller getup.  Given the fact that he hasn’t and seems more averse to roughing it out in the wasteland, Nisha’s pretty sure her advice would fall on deaf ears.

She could drag him over to the Old Mormon Fort when she’s done with him.  She’s also heard there’s an NCR encampment not far from Hoover Dam that’s been seeing some trouble.  They’ll probably have great use for some extra help in their medic tent.  They’ve got options. 

Nisha has Rhys wait outside when they reach her house.  She opens the door and scouts a little, making sure no one decided to come squatting while she was away.  It hasn’t happened anytime recently but Nisha never got out of the habit of checking after her parents died. 

“Alright, come on in,” she beckons Rhys, finding him standing sheepishly on her doorstep.

When he steps inside, she shuts the door behind him and when the latch clicks into place, Rhys’ eye is like a sharp, blue beacon of uncertainty until Nisha hits the lights. Then he’s just staring at her, hands wringing, as he’s bathed in the hazy light cast through the room.

“I’m not gonna kill you, kid,” Nisha tells him as she lets her pack slump onto the kitchen table.  “I want that water filter.”

“So you would kill me if I couldn’t build it?”

“I like killing,” Nisha admits readily.  “But I like you, too.”

“You do?” Rhys asks, dumbfounded, and Nisha smirks as she pulls her coat off and throws it over the chair at the table. 

“Yeah,” she says.  Doesn’t feel like explaining herself and she doesn’t have to, either. She reaches into the fridge and pulls out a couple bottles of beer.  “So, nah, I wouldn’t kill you.  I’d just keep you around to play with a while until you became annoying and then I’d drop you off somewhere you wouldn’t bother me anymore.”

“Like a cazador nest?”

Nisha laughs.  Shoulder-shaking, head thrown back, full-throated laughs.  When she looks back down Rhys is grinning at her, his eyes warm and delighted in contrast to how his smirk is all clever.  Yeah, this is why she likes him.  Only known for a few hours but he’s already more interesting to be around than half of the losers she meets out in the Mojave.

“No, no, if I wanted you dead, I’d do it myself.  And I’m not gonna kill you,” Nisha promises him.  She twists off the cap to a beer bottle and holds it out to him.  Rhys takes it and Nisha uncaps the other.  “Here, sit.”  Nisha kicks out the chair for him and takes a seat on the counter, since she only has the one chair.  The old, cracked linoleum creaks a bit when she shifts her weight.  “I’m not going to sleep for a while since I crashed a good bit before I found you.  We can stay up and drink.”

Rhys turns the chair so it faces her and puts his little Mojave Express bag on the table next to her pack.  When Nisha leans forward, he knocks his bottle against hers and gives a toast.

“To your magnanimous spirit,” he says and Nisha laughs again.

“To your adorable idiocies,” she says back to him.  They drink and Nisha pushes her boots off her feet, letting them fall to the kitchen floor.  Rhys is blushing again.  A soft haze of pink spreads over his pale cheek and warms the curve of his ear.  Nisha tilts her head and follows its trail down the back of his neck.  “You a lightweight?” she asks.

“Y-Yeah, a little bit,” Rhys says. 

“Good, then you won’t knock out my stash,” Nisha says, smiling.  “How many bottles until you’re drunk?”

“Two or so,” Rhys says.  He leans forward to hide his face and rubs the back of his reddened neck.

“That’s just sad.”

“Keeps my bar tabs low,” he tells her.  “Also!  Also,” Rhys lifts his head up again and points a finger at Nisha matter-of-factly, “I’ve never been hungover.”

“Fuck you, no way,” Nisha says, her smile incredulous.

“Not once,” Rhys insists.  “I’ve gotten so plastered I puked up my dinner but even then, I didn’t get hungover the next day.”

“And it wasn’t the work of some…liver implant you got fixed up with?” Nisha asks.  She swigs off another mouthful of beer and peels her socks off her feet. 

“I could barely afford to get my eyes done,” Rhys tells her.  “No, it was just a gift I was born with.”

“Well, drink your two beers and get nice and toasty, Rhys.”  He looks up when she says his name like he’s surprised that she even remembered it.  Surprised and flattered.  “I’ve only got one bed.  So you’ll have to keep yourself warm with the booze in your belly.”

“Not gonna share?” Rhys asks.  His smile quirks up a little at the corner of his mouth and he does something he probably thinks is charming with his eyebrows.  It’s all a front: he’s red as a prickly pear fruit.  Nisha runs her tongue along her teeth and his smiles slips a little.  She can see his pupils dilate.

“Mmh, no,” Nisha says.  There’s so much satisfaction in how blatantly disappointed Rhys looks.  “It’s a single.  Doesn’t fit two that comfy.  And I like to sprawl.”

“Oh.”

“But if you want me to fuck you, all you have to do is ask.”

“O-Oh….”

“Begging would be even better.”

Nisha lifts her foot and puts it against Rhys’ knee, her toes sliding along the scuffed-and-dusty fabric of his slacks before she curves the arch of her foot around the top of his thigh.  Rhys’ spine goes straight and he holds his beer bottle close to his chest, looking from Nisha’s foot to her lips and then her eyes.  She grins at him.

Rhys swallows.  Nisha watches that bob of his throat and feels like skimming her fingers along the line of his collarbone that she can see peeking out from under his button-down.  She’s still thinking about getting her hands under his clothes when his fingers curve gently around her ankle. 

“I’ve never really just….  Heh, you know….”  Rhys flushes and smiles and Nisha leans forward to thumb at his cheek.  “Not with someone I just met,” Rhys attempts to finish his thought.

“I set my terms,” Nisha tells him, scratching delicately under his chin.  Rhys’ head tilts back and his eyes slide shut and Nisha could just sink her teeth into him.  “You do what you want.”  Nisha breaks their close quiet by clinking her bottle against Rhys’ again.  It startles him a little and she laughs, sitting back to take another drink.

She keeps her foot on his leg and he holds gently to her ankle with no sign of wanting to release her.  The radio plays through his Pip-Boy and Nisha finds it all romantic and terrible and if she’s not getting any right now, then lingering any longer is just a waste. 

“So, how’d your other eye break?” she asks so she can get that moony look out of Rhys’ eyes.  Works like a charm.  He blinks and looks down at his beer bottle before taking a sip.  His thumb fiddles little circles against Nisha’s skin and Rhys frowns.  Another drink, this one longer.  “Bad memory?”

“It’s awful,” Rhys tells her.  “I went on my route at dusk, because it was blazing hot that day.  I’m barely out of Primm, halfway to Goodsprings, and some jackass knocks me out.  I wake up in a graveyard in the middle of the night and they’ve already dug a spot for me.”

“No shit?” Nisha says.  She’s grinning again.  “You kinda look like you’ve been put in a grave.”

“Well, I have,” Rhys says.  “There’s like a handful of Great Khan assholes standing around this one guy wearing a real nice suit.  I’ll never forget that friggin’ suit: it was dark gray with yellow pinstripes and cleaner than anything you’ve ever seen.  And he’s got my platinum chip and a gun pointed at my head.  It ends pretty much the way you think.”

Nisha scoots to the edge of the counter so she can get her other foot on Rhys’ chair.  She holds his face in her hands, bottle pressed up against his cheek while she tilts his head this way and that, looking for a scar from a bullet wound.

“Up here,” Rhys says and pulls some of his hair away from his temple on the left side of his head.  There’s a suture there, still pink and puckered from the rapid healing effects of a stimpak.  Nisha thumbs at it gently and Rhys winces.  His hand slides up to the back of her calf now that she’s closer. 

“Shot you shitty and buried you alive,” Nisha marvels for a moment.  She nudges Rhys’ chin with her knuckles and grins.  “And look at you now.”  He chuckles, pleased with himself.

“There was a securitron nearby that saw what happened and dug me out of the grave,” Rhys continues to explain.  Nisha’s running her fingers through Rhys’ hair now, combing it back.  His eyes close and he leans against her knee.  “Took me to the doctor in Goodsprings who kept me from dying and got one of my implants salvaged.  He didn’t have what he needed to fix the other eye.”

“And now you wanna find the guy who shot you,” Nisha says.  Rhys peers up at her. 

“You think so?”

“If I’m wrong, I want to know why you thought walking into Deathclaw territory was a good idea,” she says.  “Straight shot to New Vegas from Goodsprings is to head north.  It’s not the safest way anymore but it is the quickest.  Vengeance will make people do some crazy shit.”

Nisha releases her grasp on Rhys and watches as he finishes off his beer.  She gets him another one by pushing open the door to the refrigerator with her foot and making a blind grab inside. 

“I don’t know what the hell I’d do if I found him,” Rhys admits when Nisha passes him the second bottle.  “Thank you.” 

“Put that little laser pistol against his head and return the favor,” Nisha tells him and takes her last swig.  She runs her fingers over the carefully hidden scar along Rhys’ scalp and Rhys presses his eyes closed while he drinks again.  “Though I think you should really make it count.”

Rhys shivers.  Nisha can feel his pulse underneath the pads of her fingers. 

“How would you do it?” Rhys asks her.  His eyes are a little dizzy in his skull when he looks up at her, breath soft and warm with the scent of hops and ferment.  Nisha licks her lips and Rhys follows the motion like it’s going to give him answers.

“A shot to the head’s pretty personal,” Nisha speculates.  There’s a scuff as Rhys pushes his chair closer to her, clumsily situating himself against her with his arms resting on the tops of her thighs.  “I could take him out from a distance with a rifle but a revenge kill….  I’d wanna get up close.”

“How close,” Rhys asks, and Nisha sniggers at him because he’s either nodding off or getting hard and either of those outcomes are hilarious.  What a lightweight.

“This close,” Nisha says and cups Rhys’ cheeks in her hands to tilt his head back a little more.  “I’d get my revolver riiiiight where I wanted it…,” she presses the tips of her two fingers hard to the underside of Rhys’ jaw.  “Pow,” Nisha says.  Rhys giggles at her. 

 

* * *

 

Rhys stands at the threshold of the kitchen with a scowl on his lips, eyes squinting, sleepy.

“There’s no plumbing,” Nisha tells him.  She takes the pot of reheated stew off the hotplate and pours a half of it into a mug.  “If you gotta piss, you gotta go outside.”

Rhys groans aloud and does an unnecessarily dramatic about-face, dragging himself outside.

“Away from the house,” Nisha calls after him.

“I got it!” Rhys yells back.  Nisha snorts.  What a brat. 

The rest of the stew goes into another mug because she might as well feed him while he’s here building things for her.  She digs through his satchel and finds a few more bottles of soda that she stashes in the fridge so they’ll actually be cold.  His little peace offering last night was sweet but sarsaparilla just ain’t good when it’s tepid like that.

When Rhys comes back, he sits down on the counter like Nisha did before and peers down at the mug and the sweating bottle of purified water left for him there.

“This for me?”

“Unless you don’t want it,” Nisha says between bites of stew. “Figured you’d start whining if I made you work without feeding you first.”

Rhys scoffs. 

“I don’t _whine_ ,” he insists as he picks up the mug and frowns into it suspiciously.  “If I were hungry, I would’ve asked if you had food.” 

“Mmhm.”  Nisha watches Rhys lift the spoon that was left in his mug.  He tries a small taste and when his eyes light up, Nisha shakes her head, smiling and finishes up her breakfast. 

Midday is full of a dry, blistering heat but the workbench is outside so that’s where Rhys is working.  He takes off his vest and opens the buttons of his shirt.  Soon the work surface is riddled little electronic and mechanical bits side by side as he pulls them from his bag.  Nisha brings out her backpack and sets it by his feet so he can go through everything she found last night.  When he pulls out the blood-soaked bundle of canvas that is Nisha’s Deathclaw hand collection, his sun-flushed face turns pallid.

“I’ll take those,” Nisha says, slapping on her cowboy hat.  She hears him gagging and retching behind her as she walks over to the smokehouse to hang the hands up. 

“Everything smells like blood,” Rhys tells her mournfully when she comes back.  He’s already up to his elbows in machinery, a little smear of grease on his chin. 

“You’re just imagining it,” Nisha says. 

“ _Hands?_ ”

“You’d be surprised how high a price they fetch.”

“Oh, no, I’m sure that plenty of people would love to pay a fat sack of caps for any part of a Deathclaw,” Rhys says.  “But you had like…twenty of them.  Just sitting in your backpack with everything else.”

“And now everything smells like blood.”  Nisha grins at him.

“I don’t know how I didn’t notice it before.”

Nisha drags the kitchen table and chair outside to keep it near the workbench while Rhys hunches over his work with goggles over his eyes and a soldering iron in his fingers.  The radio plays Dean Martin and Rhys hums along.  Nisha sets her rifle and revolver on the table and sets about cleaning them up.

“Have you always lived out here?” Rhys asks her between songs, evidently not interested in whatever news Mr. New Vegas has to share. 

“Ehh, I was born closer to Novac,” Nisha tells him.   “Grew up in that area, spent a lot of my childhood trick shooting around the Repconn test site.  Surprised it didn’t turn me ghoulie.”

“That’s where those prewar rockets are,” Rhys says, mostly to himself.

“Yeah, and the Helios One Power Plant is right down the road, not far from the junkyard,” Nisha says.  “Then you got this irradiated dumping ground right across the highway to the east and no one ever said my parents were idiots for trying to raise a kid out in Novac but I know they were thinkin’ it.  ‘Specially since I turned out to be such a little shit.”

Rhys laughs and then cuts himself off with a yelp.

“Burn yourself?”  Nisha asks.

“Mngh, yeah, just a bit,” Rhys says.  He puts down the soldering iron and sucks on the tip of his finger for a moment.  “It’s fine….  Can I, uh….  Can I ask how your parents died?  How long ago was that?”

“Ages,” Nisha says.  And, no, she really doesn’t care about the retelling.  “I was…fifteen?  My mom and I got along like a bullet to the head.  We’d fight.  A lot.  More and more the older I got.  She was always home and Dad was always out long days and worn out by the time he got home so he never had anything to say.  But Mom?  She was a terrorizing bitch since the day I could run from her arms and get into trouble. 

“She got up in a mood and that day it was ‘why the fuck couldn’t I just be happy’?  ‘Why couldn’t I be satisfied with what Dad provided and what she offered and why did I keep stealing shit from the Dino Bite’?  She threw the frying pan at my head with the eggs still sizzling in it.  So I just fucking cut.”

“She threw a hot frying pan at you,” Rhys repeats.

“I cussed her out and called her a crusty old cunt and she was still hungover from the night before so I guess I struck a nerve,” Nisha says and she grins when Rhys turns to gape at her.  It’s tough to see through the scratched-and-dirty lenses of his goggles but she notices the little smile that’s trying to form at the corner of his mouth and calls it a win.

“So, yeah, I ditched Novac for a couple weeks.  Found a little renegade group of Khans who were wandering back to Bitter Springs after some trip out through wasteland.  They picked me up and I hung with them for a while.  I helped them hunt and would do some trickshots for them and they’d give me a couple caps and some hits of Jet and a place to sleep.  And when we got to the Springs, I just went back the way I came. Got back home, house had been sacked by Raiders while Mom and Dad were sleeping.  The rest of the town had already buried them and divvied up all of our stuff.”

“They didn’t even wait for you to come back?”

“No one in Novac gave a shit about me, kid,” Nisha laughs.  It really is funny.  Nisha was always hard-pressed to give a shit about any of them either.  “They had the house all boarded up to keep out squatters until they could find some ‘decent people’ to move in. I broke in and picked the lock to my Dad’s safe so I could take all the caps and the guns that he’d stashed and then I left for keeps.  Went back again not long ago.  It’s the same as it ever was.  Worse, if you can believe it.  Great bunch of nothing in the middle of the highway.  And they’re all so fuckin’ proud of it.”

Rhys considers her story for a moment in silence after letting a soft, “Wow,” fall from his lips.  Nisha threads the worn cotton rag down the disassembled barrel of her rifle with a length of wire.  Been a while since she recounted that tale in full to anyone.  Everyone’s got their own sob story out in the wasteland, comparing battle wounds and horrors because there are just so many to be had.  Always need someone looking at your scars to just confirm that, “Yep, that sure is fucked up.”

Living in this world is fucked up.  The Mojave bared its teeth to her early and Nisha just learned to snarl right back.

“So, yeah, that’s how they died,” Nisha rounds off and puts the greasy bit of cloth down so she can dig in her cleaning kit for some gun oil.  

“And you were just on your own after that,” Rhys says, drawing the obvious conclusion.

“Hopped around between groups that would take me for a while,” Nisha says, “once I got into my twenties, I could handle most everything on my own.  So I picked up the solitary life.  Suited me fine.  Still does.”

“Mmh.”  The solder is put aside for Rhys to pick up his work so far and turn it over.  It’s starting to look pretty substantial.  Mostly like a little cylindrical tank with some crazy tubing and gauges stuck to it but Rhys looks like he knows what he’s doing.  He references the plans on his Pip-Boy and then puts his head back down, taking a deep breath and fluttering the front of his shirt to try and get some air circulating.  From where she’s sitting, Nisha can see the slick of sweat glistening down Rhys’ neck and over his chest.  A state that Nisha can empathize with at the moment. 

The lip of the roof is beginning to provide less than ample shade as the sun burns across the sky.  Nisha takes off her hat and fans herself for a moment.

“So if you don’t have plumbing, where’s this thing gonna go, huh?” Rhys asks.

“In my cabinet,” Nisha says.  “And I’m just gonna collect whatever water I can and use that.  Batch it up a little at a time.”

“Don’t you think that’s such an incredible hassle?” Rhys asks her.  Nisha rolls her eyes and waits for him to explain himself.  Rhys tugs his goggles up and it messes up his hair since he just lets them sit on top of his head.  He’s got an outline of dirt under his eyes now; dusty from the nose down.  “I mean, it’s not _that_ difficult to find a house that has some plumbing in it.”

“Plumbing comes with population,” Nisha says and snaps the pieces of her rifle back together, one by one.  “Out here, it’s quiet.  No one bugs me for hunting at one in the morning or has issues with me starting up bonfires for the hell of it or comes knocking at my door because they saw me doing business with the local enemies.  Everyone’s gotta pick a side out here and the only side I wanna be on is mine.”

Nisha cocks the bolt of her rifle and then lets it click back into place before setting the gun on the table and staring at Rhys because she may not know him well, but she knows that look.  People get that look when they’re about to argue. 

“Yeah, well, what if I want to be on your side too?” Rhys says and Nisha’s laughing in spite of herself.  “Nisha, you’re too marvelous to live without the comforts and conveniences of having running water in your home.  Like, come on, man, you don’t even have a stove.  Your home is a bedroom and a living room and a room that may or may not be an actual kitchen. I mean, you treat it like one but I have serious doubts.”

“Too marvelous, huh?” Nisha asks him, leaning back in her chair and grinning at Rhys and his dirty, pouting face.

“There’s gotta be somewhere nearby that can hit a compromise for you,” Rhys insists.

“Well, when you find it, you let me know,” Nisha says with a smirk and picks up her revolver to set it on the table.  “I might even consider that life debt of yours squared as your finder’s fee.”

“Oh, I’ll find it,” Rhys tells her.  “But you gotta come with me.  I’m not gonna go on a breaking-and-entering spree across the Mojave without backup.”

“Sure, kid,” Nisha agrees lightly.  She leaves off dismantling the gun because that sun is beating her now.  “Want some water?”

“Oh, god, yes, please,” Rhys groans and leaves his work in a relieved clatter on the bench to follow her inside.

 

* * *

  

Nisha locks her guns away in a cabinet next to her bed and dresses down until she’s just in a tatty old tanktop and a graying pair of linen shorts.  Her feet are bare and dirty and her dark legs are dusted with hair up to her knees and she sits on the stoop of her porch, taking hits of Jet.  The vapor condenses in a milky stream as she lets it flow back out of her lungs.  Rhys watches it skim up along her features and fog over her eyes before it hits her hat brim and breaks into the atmosphere.

Dusk came quicker than he realized but they did wake up late.  And Rhys was curled over that water filter for hours and hours, working on getting it done as soon as he could.  He kept his word.  Managed to finish the work in less than a day.  Now he looks at his own naked feet, pale as a mole rat, next to Nisha’s long legs stretched out next to him.

“You ready to leave tomorrow?” Nisha asks Rhys suddenly.  Her words come out a little too quick-and-slurred and it takes Rhys a minute to comprehend what, “Y’reddy’a leave t’morrw?” means.  He sniggers.

“Aw, and I did such a good job for you with the filter,” he says.  “Already kicking me out.”

“Said y’wanted to fix your eye,” Nisha says.  The quick high wears off and she smacks her lips a couple times.  “Know a place that’ll hire you.”

“I don’t want to do that just yet,” Rhys tells Nisha and pulls his knees close to his chest, staring out into the red and blue dusk. 

“I’m not keepin’ a freeloader,” Nisha threatens him lazily. 

“And I wasn’t planning on sticking around forever,” Rhys says right back.  “I’d want to go to New Vegas first, before anything else.”

“Big surprise there.”

“The guy who shot me, he’s gotta be there.  That suit was so sharp. His face was clean.”

“High roller,” Nisha says.  There’s a soft, hollow hiss of her taking another hit and Rhys turns his head to gaze at the glow of the Strip in the distance, the Lucky 38 Casino like a heavenly tower, alight in the dusk. 

“Someone in town’s gotta know who he is,” Rhys says in a mutter.  He flexes his toes and feels the dirt press up into the seams of his skin. 

“Y’wanna kil’im?” Nisha asks.  Easy enough to understand that time.  Rhys scoffs.  He can’t kill anything.  He could try, he supposes.  But he’s not conniving or devious or skilled with a gun or any other weapon.  Rhys is a liar, a pretty good liar, at that.  He can smile to people’s faces and tell them whatever bullshit they want to hear just to get what he wants.  And he can talk people out of their caps but it’s not like he can talk them into their grave.

That’d just be sad.

Rhys rolls his head back on his shoulder and looks at Nisha with her pupils blown wide so her eyes sear like rings of molten iron in the dark. 

“Will you kill him for me?” Rhys asks.  Because what’s the harm in asking.

Nisha smiles.  Rhys thinks he might be smitten with that particular grin.  It touches the corners of her mouth and pulls her lips back to show off her teeth – they’re neat and pearly-perfect; a rare find – and makes Rhys’ heart impatient behind his ribcage. 

“Might do,” Nisha sighs, all lofty and drugged out of her gourd.  She puts her hand behind her head and tips her hat forward when she stretches her arms up.  Rhys can only see her mouth now.  Still smiling.  “Wouldn’t be no bounty run, so I’d have to get my satisfaction in some other way.”

“You can take whatever he has on him,” Rhys offers.

“What if he ain’t got shit?” Nisha asks.  Well, he certainly looked like the sort who might have at least one or two valuables on him.  Rhys saw that gun he used – pointed right at his face, of course he did.  That’d be a treasure on its own. 

“I’m sure there’s a way I could make it worth your while,” Rhys offers.  “We can go to New Vegas, I can ask around for info.  Once we know who he is and where he is, we can figure out a better plan of attack.  If he _is_ a high roller, then he’s gotta have some sort of wealth, right?  So we just interrogate him first before we kill him.  I can do that, get him to talk.”

Nisha tilts her head back instead of just fixing her hat and stares at Rhys with her one eye, smirking as if Rhys is just some kid spouting off plans to build a rocket ship and fly to Mars.  He’s losing the pride that puffed up his chest with every moment she spends silent, indulging him.  Who knows what she’s thinking.

“I’ll help you get him,” Nisha says.  Rhys sighs, a headache that was twisting behind his temples suddenly eases.  “Help you lure him somewhere quiet.  Make sure he can’t escape.  But when the time comes?  I want you right on top of him with your gun under his chin.  And I want you to look him in the eyes and squeeze the trigger.”

Rhys stares at the two fingers that Nisha holds up to his nose, pointed at him like a gun.

“Pow,” Nisha says gently, her pretty smirk as frightening as it has ever been.  Only now, Rhys can feel the sweat under his arms and down the back of his neck.  Nisha hurls the empty Jet inhaler across the field and it thumps in a muffle against the dust. 

“You want _me_ to do it?” Rhys clarifies.  The words stick to the back of his throat and crack on his tongue: one part horror at the intruding fantasy of having his face (and clothes) becoming the canvas for a gore splatter.  The other part recounting the moments before Rhys himself was shot in the head.  On his knees, looking past the glimmering silver barrel of that pistol up into features that were soft in mock apology.

Rhys remembers thinking what a fucking shame it was that they gagged him because he knew as soon as he looked into those eyes that he could’ve had the upper hand again. His killer’s eyes were full of the self-satisfied delight of an egomaniac, whose language Rhys could speak with familiar fluency.  He’d sing himself to sleep at night in that language.  It sounded like, “I deserve to have everything I’ve ever wanted.”  It sounded like, “The ends justify the means.”  It also sounded like, “Truth is, the game was rigged from the start,” and then a bullet going through Rhys’ skull.

But if Rhys had just been able to speak….  Maybe they could’ve found some common ground in their common tongue, he and his killer.  A tongue they shared, so to speak. Rhys slides his tongue along the inside of his cheek, feeling it, soft and slick, and forgets literally everything all at once.

“Consider it part of my terms of agreement,” Nisha interrupts, startling Rhys out of his idiotic musings.  He finds her existing where she’s been the entire time.  Right, she wants him to kill the guy.  Kill him.  Not…whatever Rhys was thinking about just now.  Nisha raises an eyebrow at him.  “Deal?”

One bloodthirsty and devastatingly attractive nutcase is enough for a lifetime but Rhys manages to find two in less than a month.  Takes one to stop one, he resasons. 

“A-Alright, fine,” Rhys says.  “But you have to be there.”

“Oh, I wasn’t gonna be anywhere else,” Nisha promises.   “No, I’ll be right there, beside you.  Watching you.  I wanna see the look on that guy’s face when he realizes who you are.  Think he’ll piss himself?”

Rhys snorts.

“No, I think he’ll just try to kill me again.”

“I won’t let that happen.” 

Rhys finds less comfort than he anticipated in those words.  Nisha’s smile says she wouldn’t particularly care if Rhys dies but she’d be annoyed if he botched the vengeance she helped orchestrate for him.

Nisha’s eyes aren’t _quite_ like Rhys’ would-be killer’s.  There is no justifying any ends or means because Nisha holds her gun like anything she points it at deserves to die and there’s no argument to make.  She turns her head this way and that in slow motions, always watching the horizon.  Even when they were working earlier, Nisha would talk and she would clean her guns.  But she was watching.

Not the vigilant sort of watch one might keep if they were trying to guard something precious.  It’s…giddy?  Like she’s expecting company or something.  Which is ridiculous since Nisha clearly likes to be on her own, living out here, an hour away from anyone who might give her a decent conversation.   But her eyes watch the roads, watch the edges of her empty fields, waiting for anything to come by.  So she can chase it or kill it.

And maybe it’s no coincidence that every time she scans the skyline, her eyes always return to Rhys and he finds her smile there.  Her full-lipped grin that always seems to have a joke that she’s not going to share. It makes Rhys want to pry it out from behind her teeth so he can know what’s so goddamn funny.

But he knows.  He knows what it is and she keeps doing this like she’s laying a well-baited trap for him.  Her lips part and her teeth aren’t sharp but they gleam like they are.  It’s all just a dare for Rhys to do something stupid, the temptation of a satisfying reward so plain before him but Nisha’s eyes say that she’ll _eat_ him if he comes close enough to bite.  They also say that Rhys will probably enjoy it, despite the fact.

“Whatcha lookin’ for, kiddo?” Nisha asks because he’s been staring at her all this time and she’s been staring back.  Like hell would she look away.

“It wouldn’t be my first kill, you know,” Rhys tells her and Nisha rolls her eyes and shakes her head.

“That ain’t what’s special, Rhys,” she says.  “You can point out any asshole in the Mojave and got about a sixty percent chance they’ve killed someone else out of self-defense, alone.  I wanna see you kill because you _want_ to.  That’s the change, babe.  Like to see what it does to you.”

She tilts her head one way and Rhys imagines her listing out all the possible outcomes for Rhys.  If he were the gambling sort, Rhys would bet his chips on the Have a Panic Attack and Most Likely Vomit reaction.  He could score bigtime with that one.

He doesn’t want to think about it.  So he opens his mouth to distract her so she’ll stop looking at him like she’s betting on the Transform Into a Violence-Loving Psychopath reaction.

“My first pleasure kill was this NCR fucker who tried to pay me after we had sex,” Nisha says before Rhys gets any words out.  “Never got his name.  He squealed real cute but, I dunno, I guess I just really didn’t appreciate how he gave me a handful of caps and asked if his little stash of Psycho was enough to cover the rest.”

Rhys mouth is still open. Nisha smiles again.

“I took his money and his drugs and all the rest of his shit after I shot him in the neck,” she concludes.  “Still got his coat.   It’s my favorite.”

This story is so absurd that Rhys believes it. 

“You killed an NCR Ranger because he thought you were a hooker,” he says.

“Yeah, it was pretty satisfying.”

She looks so damn pleased with herself.  Rhys can’t believe how much he enjoys the delight in her eyes, even though she’s getting all nostalgic over her first crime of passion. 

“Lady, you’re crazy,” he says and she laughs and pushes him into the dirt again. 

 

* * *

 

 

(artwork by [hyperi0ns](https://hyperi0ns.tumblr.com))

 

Nisha packs them both up and they head to New Vegas in the morning.  They take a more circuitous route than just heading straight north because that would take them straight along raider territory and Nisha makes a point of saying that she doesn’t have an interest in playing bodyguard.  Rhys scowls at her and she winks at him with her teeth showing.

They hit the eastern entrance of Freeside just as the sun is starting to become unbearable.  Rhys can already feel the back of his neck turning red by the time the chainlink-and-tin gate rolls along its track to admit them.  Nisha steers them right into a local pawn shop where she sells off the Deathclaw hands she gathered at a price that has Rhys folding his arms and rolling his eyes.  She could get thrice that amount if she wanted.  Well, Rhys could.  Easy. 

Then Nisha jabs her thumb over her shoulder at Rhys and says,

“Hey, so, think you can hook my friend up with a passport, Mick?”

The pawnshop owner looks at Nisha and then over to Rhys and Rhys can see the corner of his mouth stretch in skepticism.

“I dunno, Kadam,” he says, turning back to his register to count out the pithy amount of caps he’s paying her.  “I mean, you did some good work around here, got a nice word put in for you by the right people.  I don’t know this guy; ain’t even seen his face before.”

Rhys rolls his eyes again, so hard that his forehead aches.

“Excuse me,” he says, sliding up to the counter.  “Yes, hello, lovely to meet you.  Mick, was it?  You see, the trouble is, I have a delivery to make.”  Rhys readjusts his satchel on his shoulder to the Mojave Express logo on the front can be seen just so.  “And Nisha here was kind enough escort me the rest of my route after I was laid into by a bunch of Khans on the way here.”

Mick narrows his eyes, settling back on his heel and tilting his head to consider Rhys.

“You don’t say?”

“They robbed me of all my caps,” Rhys says, nodding sadly.  “I had enough to pass the credit check but now I’ve barely got two to rub together.  But I’m expecting a _real_ nice delivery fee upon arrival and already promised Nisha I’d give her a take for her trouble. I wouldn’t mind parting with a little extra just as a thank you to you if you could give a guy a hand.”

Mick looks to Nisha and Rhys hopes to hell and back that she knows how to play along.  She says nothing and Rhys doesn’t look over his shoulder because he’s not dumb and eventually Mick looks back.

“How much of a thank you are we talking here?” Mick asks.

“Two hundred caps,” Rhys says with aloof confidence.  Mick watches Rhys closely but he won’t falter now.  “Is there anything I can do for you while I’m visiting the Strip, Mick?”

There’s a beat and then Mick takes a deep breath and nods a little.  Rhys smiles at him so sweetly.

“If you’re in the area,” Mick says, ducking down behind the counter to fiddle around with something, a lockbox, perhaps, “I’d appreciate you swinging by Gomorrah.  The Omertas are usually in good business with us but they’ve been a little distant lately.”

“I’m sure I can bring you some information of value,” Rhys assures Mick with an easy grin.  “I don’t forget a favor.”

“Neither do I,” Mick tells Rhys, handing over the forgery.  Rhys takes the passport graciously and doesn’t budge under the weight of Mick’s frown. 

“We’ll be in touch,” Rhys says and just leaves at that.  No point in lingering now that he has what he needs.  He waits outside for Nisha to catch up to him. 

“Well, that was pretty impressive,” Nisha says after the door shuts behind her.  “And what’s this cut of caps I’m receiving, now?  For this escort job I’m doing?”

Rhys grins over at her, tucking his ticket into the Strip inside the pocket of his vest.

“Your reward is a front row seat to my passion-killing debut and whatever our High Roller has in his caps stash,” Rhys reminds her.  Nisha clicks her tongue as they walk together through the urban dilapidation of Freeside.  “You seemed pretty happy with those terms before.”

“I always appreciate a little more incentive,” Nisha muses.   Anyone else and Rhys would’ve laughed in their face but Nisha is Nisha and not only does she have a gun and a taste for retribution for her damaged pride, but Rhys actually likes her.  And maybe would like to continue their bizarre partnership since he’s just been enjoying himself in her company so damn much.

Nisha passes off her handful of caps to Rhys and says,

“Haggle us a good hotel room in Gomorrah.  One with a bathtub.”

Rhys snorts and takes her money.  Well, he can give her that much, at least.

 

* * *

 

There’s no shower but there is, indeed, a tub, and Nisha calls it as soon as they’re past the door.  She sheds her pack and her duster coat and all of the pistols she managed to sneak past that dumbass bouncer downstairs and leaves her clothes wherever they land and probably leaves Rhys a little dumbfounded.  She may or may not have been partially or completely naked in front of him at some point.  The details are irrelevant. 

She wants that fucking bathtub.

Nisha gets the water going as hot as she can and pokes around to see if there’s anything good to use.  It’s Gomorrah so of course when she opens the cabinet by the mirror, she finds a big ol’ bottle of lube.  There’s also a cake of yellowish soap that smells sharp and antiseptic but it’ll do.  Nisha stands in the tub and scrubs weeks of dirt off her skin and out of her hair.

It takes a while.  Nisha kneels by the tub and curls her body over its lip to dump water over her head and work a lather up.  Her last chunk of soap dissolved about a month ago and since then it’s just been water bottles and rubbing her skin raw to try and scour any dirt off.  Nisha spits dirty soapy water out of her mouth after rivulets of it run down her face.

If she had working plumbing in her home, she could do this as often as she wanted.

“Fucking kid,” Nisha laughs as she soaks her hair through again and wrings it out into the tub.  She might legitimately have to take him up on his offer to go scouring the suburbs here.  See if there’s any place she might move that’ll have this little luxury. 

Nisha suds up bouquets of muddy bubbles and rinses them away, going again and again until the water dripping off of her runs clear.  The tub itself is pretty nasty, though.  Nisha lets it drain and there’s a ring of dirt on the inside.  She frowns at it and fills up the tub again to wipe it out and then gives a satisfying nod when the porcelain is left like it was before: yellowed and old but at least not doing an impression of a vegetable planter.

The towels are laundered and folded nicely offside and Nisha grabs one to dry off with, taking it with her as she leaves the bathroom.

Everything’s red here.  Even the faded-out terrycloth that Nisha has slung around her shoulders: it’s the color of the walls and the carpet and the theatrical drapings that hang from the ceiling and the goddamn furniture.  It’s all red.  Running theme, Nisha supposes as she goes straight to the little kitchenette and pushes open the refrigerator with her foot.  There’s not much in there but it looks like Rhys stowed his sodas.  He wouldn’t even leave the house without them.  Nisha takes one for herself, futzing with pruney fingers and joints still loose from her hot soak. 

She’s a quarter way through chugging down a few mouthfuls – cold and fizzy and blissful, contrasting the steam rolling off her skin – when Nisha clues into that background buzz, the noise she hasn’t been paying attention to. Whoever’s next door is fucking.  Or just get a lot more excited about it.  The woman’s high-and-falling moans press through the drywall and the cracking red paint and Nisha’s eyebrows pull together, the lip of the bottle pressed against her mouth in curiosity.  Well, that sure is something.

Over and over, in rhythmic calls, Nisha hears that desperate voice go, “Ohh!  Ohh!  Ohh!” and the bed thunks the wall a ways away, wherever their bedroom actually is. Nisha looks up to see if there are any vents carrying the sound a little closer to her.  Whoever she’s gettin’ it from means to get their money’s worth, apparently, though Nisha doesn’t hear anything from them (him, probably) except a murmuring rumble that she might actually be imagining.  Hard to hear anything over those desperate ruinations. 

Nisha takes her bottle and wanders down the hall, returning to the main area and her pack that she left on the floor. She squats down and root around in it, looking for clean underwear.  There’s also a button-down shirt to wear that’s a little dusty but probably the least likely to undo her hour-long foray into the indulgence of centralized plumbing and a working boiler. 

This main area has a stairwell that leads up to a friggin’ loft and Nisha wanders up on bare feet, just enjoying the way the sarsaparilla on her tongue tastes earthy and sweet and how the mustiness that perfumes the wallpaper and the carpet is of a similar sweetness.  All red….

Through another door at the end of the loft and Nisha finds Rhys, sprawled back on the bed and the ever-present backtrack of the fucking going on next door is louder here.  Nisha looks and Rhys is spread-eagled on the velvet bedspread (its color quite predictable) and his shirt’s rucked up, baring his stomach. He’s pulled down the zip of his slacks.  Nisha smirks.

“They’re having fun,” she says, kicking the door a little wider open.  The circulation in here is shit. She comes closer to see if Rhys is hard.

“She’s really into it,” Rhys observes, distantly, just staring at the ceiling as if it’s a two-way mirror into the next room over and he’s just watching the show.  His cheeks are all pink and his fingertips twitch when Nisha steps into his line of sight.  He’s looking at her now.   The woman next door goes, “Ohhh, fuck, yeah!”  Rhys swallows and Nisha watches his throat like a cazador choosing for a strike point.

“You wish you were him,” Nisha says in return and Rhys gives an incredulous laugh and Nisha changes her mind.  “You wish you were _her_.”  And that makes him turn red and smack his hands over his face to try to hide it.  Nisha cackles.  She bumps her bottle against the sole of Rhys’ foot and he yelps.

“’s cold!”

“She’s faking it.  There’s no way that’s real,” Nisha says and sits down on the bed next to Rhys. 

“Well, yeah, she’s a prostitute, it’s kinda part of her job,” Rhys sighs.  His fingers rake and pull through his hair.  Nisha reaches over and touches her cool, damp fingertips to the strip of bare skin at his hips and he jolts but then pushes out a long breath.  “Sounds like it’d be good if it were for real,” Rhys says. 

He shivers at the stroke of Nisha’s hand across his waist.  She can see his cock thickening under the fabric of his clothes.  There’s a noise in Nisha’s mouth that’s part hunger and part laughter and it makes Rhys peer up at her, like he’s expecting her to crawl over him and possibly harm him.  Hard to miss the thrill that sparkles from his one glowing eye to his softer, darker one. 

“You smell like soap,” Rhys says, his lips full and his words dulled with whatever non-thoughts he’s having.  Nisha feels cautious fingertips touching her knee.  “I like the dirt on you better….”

Nisha smirks at him and Rhys swallows again.

“See, I knew it,” she says.  Her hand leaves his skin and Rhys’ back arches, lifting to chase her.  Nisha scratches her fingers under his chin instead; she enjoys the way his breath catches and the slight dart of his tongue between his lips.  The woman next door is whimpering like her face is pressed right up to the wall.  “Lotta time spent dreamin’ of ivory towers and your pockets full of caps but you’d still rather fuck like you’re nothing but a wasteland wildling.”

The moan that manages to escape despite Rhys biting hard on his bottom lip draws Nisha into his space.  She puts the soda bottle onto the bedside table and gets onto her knees, moving over him.

“Maybe if someone would do it right, for once,” Rhys tries to pout.  His eyes are so fuckin’ wide; his restless hands can’t decide to touch her or stay put.  Nisha clicks her tongue, still smiling.

“Ohh, what a shame,” she plays along.  “Too bad there’s no one you know who would gladly spend hours and hours turning you into a whimpering, drooling mess on the sheets.”

“Fuck, Nisha,” Rhys gasps.  He plants his feet on the mattress and his hands by his hips and pushes himself up so he can meet his body with hers.  Nisha gets him by the throat and that makes him still. 

“Beg me,” Nisha tells him.  She digs her nails into his neck and can taste the perfume of his blood just skimming her nose against his rosy-red cheek.  Rhys’ hands grip at her sides, holding dearly now, every finger clinging to her.  He’s got barely more than a breath when his lips part but, clear as the scorching sun, he says,

“Please.”

(artwork by [antisorum](https://antisorum.tumblr.com))

“ _Beg_ ,” Nisha insists.  Rhys’ hands tremble where they hold her, as if she’s too much to keep in his grasp, as if he’ll lose his grip at any moment.

“Nisha, _please_ ,” Rhys tries again, with her lips against his ear and her nails in his throat and his breath warm against her.  “Please, _fuck me_.”

It’s not that Nisha has never heard anyone say it to her, or even say it with just as much hunger.  But it’s been….  Hell, it’s been years.  Rhys has her mouth watering and a tense tremble in Nisha’s bones.  She shifts and releases him and Rhys lets go of her but only so he can get his fingers under the waistband of his pants and start shoving them down.  If begging her verbally didn’t appease her, Nisha finds more than enough satisfaction watching Rhys struggle to bare himself to her, quite obviously torn between enticing her and trying to get naked as quickly as possible.

It’s all very endearing.  Makes Nisha want to rip up Rhys’ clothes and leave him like that for good.

Nisha curls her fingers into Rhys’ shorts as soon as he’s got his slacks kicked off of his ankles and she tugs them down.  Rhys’ cock bobs up, landing against his hip and he makes a noise of aborted embarrassment.  Nisha laughs after it.

“No use being all bashful now,” she tells him.   And Rhys retaliates by slipping his hands under her shirt and squeezing her breasts.  “Mmnnhh….  Get rough with me; I like it to hurt,” Nisha encourages him. 

“Y-Yeah?  You sure?” Rhys asks.  Nisha shifts her weight and spreads her legs over Rhys’ stomach, pressing her crotch down against him.  “Oh, god,” Rhys whimpers.  His hands tremble against Nisha’s breasts and she rolls her hips a bit, making sure he can feel the heat of her as keenly as he can feel her nipples hardening against his palms.

“Feel unsure to you?” she teases him.  “Hurt me.”  Rhys twists his fingers and pinches down on her nipples, digging the blunts of his nails in for good measure and Nisha hisses in delight.  “Yessss….  Mnngh, yeah, keep doing that.”  He tugs and kneads and scratches at her and Nisha pushes open Rhys’ shirt so he’s as bared as he can get without having to dislodge them both.  He’s still so pink, it’s like Rhys can’t even get over how embarrassed he is even though he’s right in the middle of the good bit.

Nisha scritches and scratches her fingers up his neck, into his hair, scraping her nails along his scalp and that has his eyes rolling back in his skull, his fingers turning all pliant on her breasts.  So Nisha grips his hair and pulls.

“A-Ah, ouch!”

“Focus, pretty boy.  Be good.”  Nisha lets him go only to put her fingers against his lips and slip them past his teeth when he opens his mouth for her.  “Suck,” she orders him.  “Suck ‘em like a cock.”  And just to make it a little more immersive, she steadily starts pushing her digits in and out of his mouth.

Rhys’ lips seal around her fingers, his eyes closing while his cheeks pull in, smooth and slick against her skin.  He works his tongue against the tips of her fingers and Nisha finds herself looking down at his pretty, flushed face and wishing she really did have a cock to fuck him with.  That’d be fantastic.  There’s still plenty she can do to get him to scream like that whore the next suite over.

There’s already a knot of heat burning between Nisha’s hips, stoked by the plain, unabashed bliss that’s stolen over Rhys’ features – his wet, pink lips and his eyes with their pupils dilated wide so that he won’t miss her for a moment.  Nisha pulls her fingers from his lips, enjoying the slick _pop!_ that sounds and the trail of saliva stuck to her skin.  Rhys pants and makes these soft little noises that want to become moans but are stuck as whines and whimpers as he moves his hands around to her back to try and leverage himself up to her.   Nisha lets him, if only to satisfy her curiosity, wondering what he’ll do when he has her as he pulls himself up.  She slides down his body and settles her thighs over his hips, Rhys’ stiff dick pressed hot against her ass.

He kisses her.  Puts his drooly lips against her mouth and slips his tongue inside.  Rhys scratches up her back trying to pull her shirt off, breaking away only for a moment to get it over her head before he goes for another kiss.  Nisha catches his face, holding him in place so she can eat her fill of him; they’re playing _her_ game right now. 

She’s not usually one for kissing but Rhys tilts his head a certain way and keeps his mouth moving in this pattern, this easily-followed sway of licking and pursing and withdrawing.  It’s a little hypnotizing.  It’s like he’s drinking something precious from her lips.  Probably tastes like Nuka-Cola and its familiar singe of syrupy radiation. 

“Mmnh,” Rhys insists gently as he scrapes those harmless teeth against her mouth.  He’s gone all yielding under her again, content to just imbibe Nisha as he likes.  Nisha reaches under them both and wraps her hand around his cock to remind him what they’re really here to do, what Rhys begged her for.  He gasps and she pulls back, sucking spit off her bottom lip.

He’s a quivering little mess as she pushes him down again.  He shivers, teeth chattering a little while he runs the palms of his hands over every scratch, burn, and scar on Nisha’s chest.  She lets him, for a moment, hand under herself to (sweetly, threateningly) stroke her nails along the length of his erection.  Rhys’ whole face seems to crumple and he lets out a startled and thrilled noise in spite of himself.  Tastes salty when Nisha kisses it off of his bottom lip.

“I’ve been out of practice,” Nisha tells Rhys and she has to give him a minute.  She watches the lust distorting Rhys’ gaze clear while he tries to put his thoughts back together.  It clicks eventually.  Nisha smirks at him and Rhys takes a deep breath before trying out words again.

“Well, uh,” he starts, “I could help with that, I think.”

“Sure,” Nisha says, already shifting her weight around, pulling at the crotch of her shorts to tug them aside.  Rhys tries to sit up and strains to look but Nisha snags his cheeks between her fingers.  “But I want your eyes up here.  M’kay?”

“M’kay,” Rhys repeats, and blindly bumps his fingers along the inside of Nisha’s thigh.  His knuckles skate up the smooth-and-scarred flesh until he hits the softness of her worn-out shorts.  Just a hem….  And beneath that, the firm, flexed tendon of her pelvis, the soft and thick thatch of curls that Rhys indulgently slips his fingers through.  And Nisha stays above him, watching him discover her and the minutiae of his wonderments and how each of them turn him pink in different places.

She rolls her hips and tugs the cloth aside a little more, leaning into Rhys’ shuddering sigh when his fingers finally find the hot, wet center of her and stroke.  Nisha smiles, letting her eyes close.  Just for a moment, just to enjoy herself.  Then she opens them again because she wants to see Rhys’ face.

“Inside, in, in,” Nisha insists, and puts her hand against his to push at his fingers.  “Yeah, just like that, c’mon….” 

“Fuck, you’re so hot,” Rhys pants against Nisha’s mouth.  His two fingers twist and push up inside of her.  His thumb pushes around, looking for her clit.  “It’s like you’re melting on me….”

“Work, Rhys,” Nisha tells him and bites the tip of his nose.

“Ouch, okay, okay!”

 

Nisha’s hair is cool and wet against Rhys’ cheek but her cunt is an enticing, molten warmth around his finger and Rhys wants nothing more than he wants that heat around his dick.  He plays with thrusting his fingers into her, turning them and crooking them and spreading them, seeing what makes her blink slowly down at him, what makes Nisha take deep breaths and sigh.  He pushes firmly against her clit and curls his fingers forward and her tongue flicks out and slips back in, her teeth pulling along her bottom lip to chase it while her hips press down.

“Good?” Rhys asks her.  His dick is twitching against his hip.  It’s such an awful ache how hard he is right now, and before Nisha even decides to answer, Rhys puts his face against her soft little breast and scrapes his teeth against it.  He closes his lips around her nipple and licks, listening to his own heartbeat swelling behind his temples.

“Teeth,” Nisha tells him and Rhys bites. Pretty hard, too, earning him a gasp and the very distinct seize of Nisha’s muscles around his fingers.  Nisha scratches her nails up through Rhys’ hair again, dragging them along his scalp and it has Rhys moaning and sighing against her breast.  He sweeps his tongue over the little nub to soothe whatever mark he probably left behind and then pulls off of her, pressing a third finger inside since that little nip slicked her even more. 

Nisha’s eyes are scorching gold and Rhys can see a haze of red coloring her neck and chest and cheeks.  He blinks up at her and swallows to wet his breathless throat. His fingers work in and out of her of their own volition, chafing a little against her underwear since she’s no longer bothering to hold it aside for him.

“You fall in love?” Nisha asks, still making fun of him while she keeps him pinned.  Her fingers press bruises into his porcelain-pale and sun-ruddied skin and she skims her claws along the lines of his muscles and bones, plucking at his nipples and earlobes, any tender bit of him, as if to remind him that she knows where all of his soft points are.  Saliva pools under Rhys’ tongue and he gulps it down before he just opens his mouth to make a fool of himself.

“I’m in love with the thought of you riding me until I pass out,” he admits in a spectacular demonstration of foolishness.  She still laughs at him but Rhys concedes that he might never have another intelligent thought while her body is against his.  He slips his fingers from her and brings them straight to his erection, slicking it up and letting himself have the indulgence, that dirty, visceral connection of smearing her cum over his dick.  He holds himself up for her, looking to her face and pleading wordlessly for her to just let him have her.

And why he thought that would ever work, Rhys blames entirely on his unthinking brain.

Nisha snorts at him and plants her hand on his chest and pushes him down until Rhys bounces against the mattress.

“Please,” Rhys tries with words this time because that seemed to work a little better for him in the past. 

“Please what, horny little boy?” Nisha coos at him. She stands up on the mattress, lifting herself away from Rhys entirely.  His whole body is already shivering without her warmth.  There’s no way she’s just gonna leave him like this, right?  Rhys could feel, she was all loose and wet and ready for him.  She _wanted_ him. His heels push and shift restlessly against the red cotton sheets and Rhys gets himself up onto his elbows so he can look up at her, standing there, peeling off her wet underwear like she just conquered him

“Please let me fuck you; I think I’m gonna _die_ ,” Rhys whines.

“No, I don’t think you get it.”  Nisha crouches down between his legs and gets both of her hands under Rhys’ knees before pushing them up towards his shoulders.  Rhys puzzles at her but comprehends when she braces one hand against him and uses the other to hold his cock.  “I’m the one fucking _you_.”

“Oh, god….”

“Mmhmm.” 

Rhys spreads his legs a little and it throws off her balance – Nisha clicks her tongue and pulls her lips back to snarl at him – but then she gets her hands around his ankles and bears down.  She’s running just a bit hotter than him, a slick and sweltering heat that has Rhys feeling dizzy as his head falls back against the pillow.  Fever creeps over him while Nisha rotates her hips and presses down until Rhys is sure she can’t get him any deeper.

“You’re real hot, baby,” Nisha tells Rhys, a laugh falling off of her lips, and maybe a little drool too.  “Feels good.”  Rhys gulps down a ragged breath and parts his lips to speak.  All that comes out is a reedy little noise and Rhys’s hands feel aimless until they find Nisha’s knees and grip at her, needing.  “Mnnnh, like that pretty face,” Nisha says, low and lovely.  She shifts her body and her hips lift up.  Rhys’ back is arching without his consent and he can’t get any good leverage with his feet in the air like this, completely at Nisha’s mercy.

“Please,” he gasps.  She pulls off almost all the way, then pushes herself back down again and Rhys loses his ability to think.  “God, please, more.”

“Yeah, you’re cute when you beg,” Nisha answers.  “You like that?  Feel good to get your dick wet?  Been a while?”

Rhys whines and digs his blunted nails into Nisha’s knees and she laughs at him.

Here she is, squatting over Rhys with her pussy snug and squeezing his dick and Rhys is still just this funny little boy she picked up to play with.  She’s looking down at him, delighting.  Rhys thinks that, like this, she could make him do anything.  Give up his every possession: his caps, his clothes, his name and his purpose.  He’d give her anything.

“Don’t remember,” is all Rhys says because evidently, she’s still waiting for an answer, torturing him by keeping still, without even a ripple of muscle to keep him focused. 

“Too bad,” Nisha says. 

Rhys never thought to pride himself on flexibility.  But Nisha folds his body in half, putting his knees to his shoulders and keeping him pinned.  She holds the backs of his thighs and rolls her hips, thrusting herself down onto his cock. 

“Oh, oh, god!” Rhys cries out.  He presses his hands over Nisha’s, clammy skin sticking to the scratched scars over her knuckles.  “Yes!  Yes, ‘s good!”

Nisha makes his contented noise that’s part moan and part croon and her nails scratch into the tender, damp undersides of Rhys’ thighs.  She keeps this pace that’s knocking every breath out of Rhys’ lungs.  She pushes her cunt down the length of him and their hips meet in stinging, wet slaps.  And when the brutal repetition loses her interest, Nisha presses herself as deep as she can go and grinds her clit against his pelvic bones; her head rolls back on her shoulders and she sighs, the sound of it terrible and enticing. 

Rhys’ hands shake where they hold hers.  All bent up on himself with a restless and gnawing energy wound up between his hips.  Right now, he’s nothing more than the throb of blood through his cock.  He is a tangle of nerve endings all attuned to Nisha’s whims, her body, the very temperature of her aroused flesh, clenched tight to his erection. 

She is that wet, blazing, _persistent_ hold.  She’s her sweating, needle-nailed hands holding his thighs in place to keep her balance.  Nisha is the scent of soap and warm water and a tongue tasting like soda and if Rhys focuses, he can still feel her in his mouth, carbonated and sweet.  She’s crowding him and pinning him to the bed beneath her and he wouldn’t mind, Rhys thinks, if she kept him here forever.

Though the ache of his want for her is shredding through him, begging for satisfaction.

“Please, please!” he’s saying without even knowing what he’s asking for.  But when he has the space, he’s shoving his hips upwards, towards her, trying to meet every downstroke she’s giving.  He can feel it, the weight of this, like a vice on his mind where it’s shutting down everything but the animalistic starvation that’s turned the pit of his stomach into that freefall giddiness.  “Wanna come,” Rhys gasps out.  Not because he needs her permission – he’s beyond that – but he wants her to know that he’d rather have her permission than not.

“Look at me.”  Her command is so clear, barely broken by labored breaths but when Rhys comes back to himself – his eyes were never closed, but he wasn’t focusing on anything in sight – he sees her hunched over him.  She looks down at him.  Her mouth is open and her lips are chapped but licked-over shiny.  There’s sweat on her chin and her hair sticks to her forehead.  “Right here,” Nisha says and takes away her one hand to bring it to her own cunt, rubbing at her clit while she grinds down hard on Rhys’ cock. 

That’s it, that’s all he needs.  Rhys watches her touch herself and feels her cunt shudder around his dick and he spills into her.  Shameless.  He scratches up her arm and moans like he’s never let himself before.  Body bent so crudely, it hurts to come like this but that pain is its own sweetness, as is Nisha panting, shivering, going, “Mmnnh, mnnhh,” while Rhys throbs and fills her up. 

“Ow, ow,” he says when the warm-wonderful fades away and he’s just a naked cramp with a gorgeous woman pressing her weight down on him.  She’s kind enough to take the hint and lifts herself off his dick so he can let his legs down again.  He’s a bit nauseous, ribs sore from such an awkward position. 

Nisha stands there with her feet on the mattress, looking down at him while Rhys catches his breath.  He’s only got like three seconds to do that much; Nisha lowers herself to her knees, straddling Rhys, and crawls up his body.

“You’re not done until I’m done,” she says, clearing her throat at the end of it when the words catch against her parched tongue. Rhys would be more than happy to wet it for her again.  His priorities are a bit shifted when Nisha gets her knees next to his ears and spreads the lips of her pussy for him to see the vulnerable pink of her and the mess of translucent white that he left behind inside.

 

Between her thighs, Rhys’ eyes are all dizzy.  But he blinks and takes a breath and blinks again, furrowing his brow to focus on what she’s brought for him.  Nisha’s already opening her mouth to tell him what to do but she’s interrupted.  Rhys wraps an arm around the back of her hips and pulls her up, shifts her forward, sealing his lips around the bud of her clit.

“God,” Nisha swears in a whisper while she lets her shoulders fall only to seize them back up again.  He’s so pink, flushed all the way to the roots of his hair.  His eyelashes are dark and soft against his cheeks and he makes this little movement with his head as he sucks on her that has Nisha trembling on her knees.  His hair tickles the inside of her thigh and his tongue slips down to dip into her entrance.  “Good boy,” Nisha sighs at him, “Mnnhh, yeah, lick all the way in….”

Rhys shifts under her, scooting down so he can get his mouth pressed up right against her, tongue sliding as deeply as it can.  His nose rubs and bumps against Nisha’s clit; wet, greedy noises of his mouth wrapping around her, slurping and suckling and lapping away his own cum from her lips sound twice as loud in Nisha’s head.  The music of it is a lewd accompaniment to just how soft and hot his tongue is, how his fingers are still gripping and holding her with a shivering greed.  

From this angle, it’s difficult to see his face.  Nisha puts her hands against the wall so she has something to brace against because she just wants to roll her hips against that pretty face of his.  But she catches Rhys looking up at her, half-lidded eyes with his pupils blown wide and blush warm against her skin where his cheek touches her.  So she stalls herself for a moment to stroke her fingers through his hair, against his scalp.  Rhys’ eyes flutter closed and he gratifies her by sucking on her clit again, making Nisha jolt and moan.

“You look happy down there,” Nisha laughs, to which Rhys simply levers himself up a bit, getting his arms wrapped around her thighs so he can pretty much just hang there and gorge himself on her.  “I wanna come in your mouth,” Nisha breathes and Rhys moans against her.  Like he’s saying, _Yes, yes, use me up_. 

She’s not gonna refuse him now.

One hand on the wall, the other tucked under Rhys’ skull, Nisha grinds herself down on Rhys’ face.  Rhys just groans back, his tongue sloppy against her hole as control slips away from him. 

“Be good,” Nisha tells him, her words tightening in her chest while she loses her breath.  And Rhys might have to decide between wanting to please her and wanting to breathe but even when he’s still, his exhales harsh and hot against her cunt, Nisha can still find a bit of him she can rut against. 

He falls out of her grip with a little twist of his head and Nisha follows him down as his hands pull on her.  When they land, he tilts his chin up far enough to speak to the open air and Nisha licks her lips, looking down at his mouth and chin and cheeks, shiny wet and chafed pink. 

“Please,” he says, catching his breath, “more….”

Nisha grins and threads her fingers through his hair again, holding him tight at the root so she can steer his head and hold him still before she sits on his face and blacks out his whole world. 

She doesn’t have any words for him after that, her eyes closing, whole body focused on the feeling of her clit and wherever it pushes.  Against his nose, dragged down his chin, lingering at his mouth where Rhys’ tongue can lick and tease her.  And sometimes he’s a little pathetic, just laying there, trying to breathe whenever her body shifts enough to get some air, but even that sound is thrilling.  She’s stealing his every breath for her own pleasure.

It’s easier, after a while, to let Rhys go.  To anchor her hands on the bed behind her, put her weight back so she can lift her hips and just roll them against his face.  And though it shifts the pressure in a way that isn’t as gratifying, it also gives Rhys enough room to get his hands against her.  His lips fasten to her clit and three fingers press right up inside of her, wrist bent at a rough angle so he can curl his digits and knead at that spot, that place that has Nisha’s ankles weakening.  Her heels shudder into the mattress and Nisha swipes her tongue against the roof of her mouth, trying to swallow back but the moans slip out anyway. 

“O-Ohhh, fuck!” she hisses.  Her hips buck and Rhys gets jostled but, bless the boy, he doesn’t let her throw him off.  His teeth gnash at her thigh and he knocks her flat on her back, crawls up and puts his tongue right back where it belongs, finger-fucking her into her orgasm.  And she has it with the balls of her feet dug into the red velour blankets, knees in the air and spread, shaking, gasping.  Rhys doesn’t stop.  His eyes close and his brow furrows and he licks and fucks her through the seconds.  The stack up on each other and pass the plateau until Nisha’s just an overstimulated, thrashing nerve but even that pain is pleasure.  It makes her come a _second_ time.  Rhys picks his head up like he can’t believe it but draws her through it after the split second when he stops out of surprise.

“Holy shit,” he’s saying while Nisha’s hips thrust and heave trying to force his fingers right up against her g-spot to get those last few seconds of sweetness to herself.  And when she’s done with him, Nisha collapses back in a fit of satisfied laughter and puts her foot against Rhys’ chest to shove him away from her.  He falls off the bed.  She laughs even harder.

 

* * *

  

He’s clingy.  Even after kicking him off the bed, Rhys just laughs it off and crawls back up and slides up between her legs looking like he wants to be smooth but like he can’t be anything but cautious. He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and watches her. Nisha just lays there, wishing a canister of Jet would spontaneously materialize in her hand but showing nothing for it.  When she doesn’t give him any weird looks or tell him off, Rhys lowers himself over her body and puts his head between her breasts.  He holds still like he’s holding his breath.  Stays tense like he’s expecting her to shove him off.  Nisha scritches at his scalp again and that makes him press more of his weight onto her. 

“One-to-ten likelihood that we get to have sex again,” Rhys says, his voice still sounding a little scratchy.  Nisha’s chest jolts in a laugh; she can feel his cheek smush against her a little as he grins.

“Well, it wasn’t the worst I’ve had in my life and, honestly, I’d still probably fuck that guy again,” Nisha says.

“Because he was still pretty decent or because you just like to fuck?” Rhys asks.

“That last one.”

“So my odds are good.”

“Pretty good, I’d say.”

Rhys stiffens in surprise when Nisha wraps her leg around his but then he just relaxes into her. 

“Shit, I was supposed to go out and do recon on our guy, ugghh,” he says in a groan of disappointment that ends up muffled against her chest. 

“Not like it was a time-sensitive opportunity, babe,” Nisha tells him.  She knuckles at his skull a little and he retaliates by trying to bite her breast.  “We’ve got nothing _but_ time.”

Rhys yawns.  Nisha rolls him off of her so she can go pee and grab a few inhalers of Jet but she comes back to him when she’s done.  Rhys shotguns hit after hit from Nisha’s lips and they both forget about New Vegas for a while.  It’ll still be there whenever they decide to get back to it.


End file.
